All of these things are both possible and probable. But when you're trying to gain traction in a career like architecture, it can be difficult to know where your effort and investment are best spent. Enter Archsoc.com, the cyber home of Dr. Garry Steven's Key Centre for Architectural Sociology.
Architectural Sociology? What's that, you ask? It's an Australian-based site which professes to be "in the business of studying architects, not practicing architecture." For the record, Dr. Garry Stevens, Ph.D., is an architectural academic who taught in both the United States and Australia throughout the 1980s and 90s. He is not a registered architect, but he does have both a bachelor's degree and a Ph.D. in architecture.
Stevens and Archsoc.com published a ranking of the top architecture schools in six regions where English is the dominant language: the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and (counting as one region) New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Ireland.
The rankings were based on examinations of the universities' senior academics who have contributed research to the school's architecture department. Stevens says that, "For each academic, we counted his or her references in the two great library databases of the RIBA and the Avery Library. This gave a research score for each person. We then calculated the median research score for each school. That is, the typical research score of an academic at that school."
Hence, the top architecture schools in the United States region and their corresponding research scores are as follows:
- Columbia University - 31
- Princeton University -19
- Cooper Union - 16
- Harvard University - 16
- University of Pennsylvania - 11
- University of California, Berkeley - 10
- Rice University - 9
- Yale University - 8
- University of Notre Dame - 5
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 5
- University of California, Los Angeles - 5
- Northeastern University - 5
- University of Maryland - 5
- Carnegie Mellon University - 4
- Tulane University - 4
- University of Miami - 4
- University of Minnesota - 4
- University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee - 4
- University of Southern California - 3
- University of Texas at Austin - 3
- Rhode Island School of Design - 3
- Ohio State University - 3
- University of Washington - 3
- Pratt Institute - 2
- University of Michigan - 2
ArchitectureWeek determined which firms would top the list by using the following criteria: "The firms were selected based on their commitment to provide a positive work environment and challenging and interesting design opportunities for their employees."
So the bottom line was not the bottom line for making it onto this list.
It's also slightly surprising (and maybe even a bit heartening) that none of the top twenty firms in the United States region are found in the usual architect metropolises of Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, or Seattle.
- FRCH Design Worldwide, Cincinnati, OH
Number of employees: 200
- Little, Charlotte, NC
Number of employees: 275
- Bloodgood Sharp Buster Architects & Planners, Inc.,
- Sasaki Associates, Inc., Watertown, MA
Number of employees: 250
- EDSA, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Number of employees: 200
- BSA LifeStructures, Indianapolis, IN
Number of employees: 215
- Scott & Goble Architects, Tulsa, OK
Number of employees: 70
- RNL Design, Denver, CO
Number of employees: 200
- Mackey Mitchell Associates, St. Louis, MO
Number of employees: 45
- Kahler Slater, Milwaukee, WI
Number of employees: 125
- Harley Ellis Devereaux, Southfield, MI
Number of employees: 500
- MulvannyG2 Architecture, Bellevue, WA
Number of employees: 400
- JLG Architects, Grand Forks, ND
Number of employees: 25
- Hnedak Bobo Group, Inc., Memphis, TN
Number of employees: 100
- WESKetch Architecture, Millington, NJ
Number of employees: 30
- Dominick Tringali Architects, Inc., Bloomfield, MI
Number of employees: 25
- Perkowitz+Ruth Architects, Long Beach, CA
Number of employees: 320
- Cuhaci & Peterson, Architects, Orlando, FL
Number of employees: 100
- SGA Companies, Inc., Bethesda, MD
Number of employees: 15
- Maxwell Johanson Maher Architects, Nashville, TN
Number of employees: 40
